Britain’s Olympic Hopefuls: Rebecca Adlington

With the Olympic Games on the way this summer we’ve decided to take a look at the sports stars that have the biggest hopes for winning a gold medal for Great Britain!

Each week we’re taking a look at a British Olympian and learn about the event they will be competing in this summer in London 2012.

Rebecca Adlington – Freestyle Swimming

The Freestyle Swimming events at the Olympics involve swimmers using front crawl to race each other. There are different length races at the Olympics, some are short like the 50 metre and 100 metre races. But there are also longer races which require greater stamina such as the 400 metre and 1500 metre races.

All these events take place in a 50 metre long swimming pool, so in the 100 metre race the swimmers must complete 2 lengths of the pool. There are also relay races which involve 4 team members swimming 100 metres or 200 metres one after another with the fastest team the winner.

Rebecca Adlington is one of Britain’s best swimmers. She won 2 Gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in the 400 metre and 800 metre events, breaking the 800 metre world record in the process!

Since then she has won medals at the World Swimming Championships in 2009, the European Swimming Championships in 2010 and the Commonwealth Games in 2010!

This summer Adlington is aiming to add to her medals when she competes in the 200 metre, 400 metre and 800 metre freestyle races as well as the 4×200 metre team relay. When not swimming, Rebecca says she loves to visit theme parks.